Hope Behind the Curtain
by OneDollarFlipFlops
Summary: Two one-shots of what Glinda and Oz were thinking at different parts of the movie.
1. Hope

Author's Note: All dialogue in quotations is quoted directly from the movie "Oz the Great and Powerful" and was written by either Mitchell Kapner, David Lindsay-Abaire, or L. Frank Baum, although I'm thinking not the latter. Point is, it's not mine. All other thoughts of characters are extrapolations and daydreams. That's what fanfiction is all about, isn't it?

* * *

**Hope**

_What am I going to do if he leaves?_

The Wizard walks out of the library with the china girl, leaving me with my thoughts. This place, filled with the alluring fragrance of knowledge yet undiscovered and the warm light of the hearth, has been my haven for the last decade and a half of my exile from the Emerald City, but today walls seem to fall away and leave only a dark precipice over my kingdom and my future. I shake my head to banish the image, shivering as I walk to one of the chairs at the large table and sit.

_There _is _good in him, for all his assurances to the contrary_, I think, remembering his dramatic passage through the wall I spent so many weeks carefully researching and crafting to protect my people from Evanora. To think it almost kept out the one person able to help. _But it didn't,_ I remind myself. _And despite his proclivity for disappearing, I have seen glimpses of his true self when he thinks no one is watching._ A smile crosses my face. He tries so hard to come across as a hardened con man, but his tenderness with the china girl hints at a softer inside. His way with her reminds me of my father, in some regard. Not a month, week, day, or hour goes by that I don't miss his gentle manner.

I sit back in the chair and lean my cheek on my left fist. Now is not the time to dwell on such memories, not when there are important things to be decided. A sigh escapes my lips, and it transforms into a yawn before I can stop it. Being an optimist is occasionally exhausting. More so around the Wizard, I'm discovering.

_What am I missing?_

The door to the library slams open and the Wizard hurtles down the steps, his eyes alight with a passion I've never seen before now. Excitement radiates from him like sparks off a fire. The sight of him reignites my dwindling energy, but prudence tells me to be cautious, to not get caught in his whirlwind of exuberance until his explanation is offered.

"What have you got?" I ask, rising from my seat and doing my best not to grin like a fool at the way his entire manner has changed with the advent of his idea. As he explains, I can't resist teasing him, playing into his enthusiasm. I perch a hip on the table and am not quite successful in hiding the smile that has been threatening to burst onto my face.

"You said you were just a con man."

"Precisely."

"Nothing but a trickster?"

"Yes."

"A terrible cheat?"

"The best there is."

"The carnival magician is going to put on a show."

"I'll put on a show of the lifetime, the likes of which the land of Oz has never seen!"

I'm grinning like a madwoman now, I know. There is something special about witnessing a person become who their true self longs to become, to watch as that person becomes consumed by that which lights their spirit. His willingness to stay and help me and my people relieves me and lifts a great pressure from my shoulders. Despair is not something I allow myself to feel, but in recent the times the emotion has become perilously close, and never so much as when Theodora broke through my wall earlier this afternoon.

Something terrible happened between the two of them. I was not blind or deaf to their reactions toward each other. He will tell me about what happened one day, perhaps, but I doubt it's anything that hasn't happened before from what I know of him and his ways. This is just the first time he's been around long enough to see the repercussions of his actions. Despite this, as I sit on the table and listen as he expounds on his plan with grand gestures that encompass his entire body, a strange thought flickers across my mind.

_I wonder what it was like to kiss the Wizard._

The fleeting thought is a ribbon snapping in the wind of my thoughts before I grab hold of it and secure it for a more appropriate time, if such a time exists. His plan is complex and will require everyone to pull together for it to succeed, but for the first time in many years I allow myself to bask in warmth of something I've worked hard to bring to my people: hope.


	2. Behind the Curtain

**Behind the Curtain**

"For you, a sight envied by all and seen by none."

_Technically not true. It's only been given to one other person, and I hope she won't mind that I'm allowing you to see this side of me as well._

"You'll be astounded by what you find behind the curtain."

I've startled her with the closing of said curtain, and my close proximity. She smells like sunshine and fresh air, and the jewels crowning her tiara sparkle in the dim lighting. When she comments on the tightness of the space, I respond with my trademark "Nice, isn't it?" and give myself a mental kick. The memory of the last time I used that line on a different witch still stings me with shame.

For once, I'm not up to what she thinks, though I don't blame her. This is the perfect place for me to make a move, and to not do so screams against all my instincts. Right now, something more important is on my mind.

"I want to thank you for opening my eyes."

_I never even knew they were shut or how much I was missing._

"And what do you see?" she asks, her face full of curious hopefulness.

"That I have everything I ever wanted."

_And everything I never even imagined could be mine._

"For the record, I knew you had it in you all along," she says, her lilting voice filling the tight space even though she is whispering.

I smirk, knowing what is going to come next. "Greatness?"

_Isn't that what I've finally accomplished here? Haven't I fulfilled the end of the bargain I promised whatever deity sent me to this strange land?_

"No, better than that," she insists. "Goodness."

The moment the words spill from her perfect, pink lips, time seems to pause and take a breath.

Goodness. That which I've spend my entire life running from for fear I would die of its banality, its gray lifelessness. What is goodness? She speaks of it as though it were almost hallowed. Good is not something I'm comfortable with, but here, in this space, when she says it, I can almost believe it is the truth.

Here, the goodness she speaks of has little to do with planting crops, attending church, or raising babies. Here, there are opportunities to perform great things only a good man can accomplish. Here, goodness is something buried within me, not an insurmountable goal I will never be able to achieve. And here, I realize as I gaze into her eyes, is where I am going to kiss this indomitable woman who never stops believing anything is possible. Never have I met someone who combined the wonder and mischievousness of a child and the wisdom and clarity of an adult with such grace and ease.

Time releases the breath it was holding I pull the fair-haired witch closer, eyes flicking from her eyes down to her parted lips and then back. When her hazel eyes follow the same path on my own face, I lean down to press my lips against hers. She is shy, a little uncertain, but not unwilling in the least.

I hear a click and feel the heat of the praxinoscope's lamp shining on us, but time once again seems to grant us respite, and I lose myself in the softness of her body pressed against mine and the heat of my hand on the bare skin of her back above her dress. Somewhere in the distance Sourpuss is blowing a fanfare.

The witch smiles into the kiss and curls a hand behind the back of my neck to keep me from pulling away.

_Yes, good men can do great things here._


End file.
